Windows 10 Anniversary Update is crashing on some PCs employing a solid-state drive.
The Anniversary operating system is understood to be freezing PCs where Windows 10 is stored on the SSD, but apps and data are on a separate drive.
A Microsoftie writing on answers.microsoft.com reckons the software giant is now investigating …

Re: Wow.

@Novex "I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago."

"I note Microsoft's attitude to how well my machine works will be governed by the nature of my interest in taking forced updates without question and would therefore be grateful if you would inform me what Microsoft's attitude to forced updates would be, were they to learn that the nature of my reply is as follows: fuck off."

Re: Wow.

Hey! Don't insult Windows 8 like that, you can grab a copy of Windows 8, slap Classic Shell on it, block the telemetry backports and voila! A usable useful OS!

Windows 10? Its a broken alpha quality at best OS that only exists because Nutella is trying to badly ape Google the way the Ballmernator tried to badly ape Apple iOS with Windows 8.

BTW if you want to know why Windows 10 is such a giant POS? Look up Banacles Nerdgasm's channel on YouTube and watch his "I was fired" video...he was part of the tester team and says they were ALL fired, all the testers and ALL of the QA team were given their walking papers...why? Because YOU are the new beta testers, with the handful that run Insider the alpha testers. This is why you can't stop updates but the Enterprise customers can, you gotta "do your job" and deal with all those OS breaking bugs so the actual customers don't get the shitty product you did...nice huh?

So all of you that buy new PCs with Win 10 Home or Pro? Yeah you are paying to not only give your data to MSFT but to be a beta tester on an OS who had very little alpha testing since of course very few run Insider edition. Great for MSFT, sucks to be you.

Re: Wow.

Re: Wow.

Well I turned on telemetry before the update, I'm sure ms got this fix coming.

Now I'll wait in front of the frozen Windows for the auto update fix. Any time now...

Worst comes to worst, I'll just tell my boss my word document report will be delayed indefinitely and it will take the next update for me to read the outlook emails he sent. I'm sure he will understand.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

> Last time I looked I it wasn't running well under WINE.

Try Play on Linux ... a wine management gui thingy that not only allows you to install all the necessary runtimes but also allows you to select a wine version which it will download and install for you ... it will be installed alongside any other wine version you have, no worries ... and have bottles ... a bit like CrossOver Offce ... I tried desperately to get Sims 4 working on Crossover ... worked out of the box with play on linux ... I know, Sims 4 is not the same beast ... PoL is for graphics-intensive stuff ... which autocad is, I guess? (lol)

AutoCAD is the best, is it not ? Show us, prove it to us, Autodesk, release a Linux version.

Re: Leaving Microsoft -AUTOCAD

It is the heavy hitting applications like AutoCAD that keep Windows in business. Web browsing and word processing are fine on Linux for most people. I develop MS Access applications for my customers. Yes obviously there are languages and development environments which would produce a slicker result but with a great deal more work. When a tool is right for the job it's difficult to switch to a less suitable tool. Windows is a pain but whilst Windows 7 still works I will stick with it. I keep eyeing Linux for the desktop though.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

I just up-voted BobChip, a fellow after my own heart. I used to teach IT and Computing at a college that was solely M$ Office/VBA based, meaning students couldn't do their project assignments as homework unless they they (or Mum/Dad) bought proprietary M$ software.

In 2008 I walked out disgusted and disillusioned with the ethos, the syllabus and derived schemes of work.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Thankyou AndrewDu ...

... for offering to install your MS software on the home device of anyone who needs it to do their homework. Isn't it generous of Microsoft to allow this in their terms and conditions. But what happens when students complete their course? Can they continue with the licensed copy you installed, or do they have to pay a monthly fee / answer questions on the adverts to use the skills they have learned?

Re: Thankyou AndrewDu ...

It looks licensing is an unknown realm for most user, probably too used to wharez to understand it.

Some enterprise licensing scheme also allows a user to install the software at home (so it keeps people using the same, and company likes it so they can work off-hour too), but usually on one PC only. These are not educational licenses, and are valid as long as you are employed in a company using those licenses.

Educational licenses of course expire when your education period is over. They are usually very cheap and let you access a lot of software. Then you have to move to other licenses - why you should not? Do you still expect pocket money from your parents?

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Re: Leaving Microsoft

It helps to compare MSOffice at least to LibreOffice 5 (a fork of openoffice) when comparing the two, otherwise you just look stupid. LibreOffice 5 covers most user bases today and is cetainly as good as the iOS, Android mobile versions of MSOffice, given both MS mobile versions lack the 'full fat' MSOffice features of VBA.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

That is because of the circles you are in, not because of widespread adoptance. Whatever it is branded as this week, it doesn't even meet basic features and that is when you can get it to interoperate with other business users. Eg. we had to resort to Excel because LibreOffice couldn't do basic sorting and filtering of data correctly for certain sets of data.

Re: Leaving Microsoft MS Orifice

I (sort of use) MS Office at work, no idea what version as there is no help about (but dated 2015), it has a square ribbon style menu and I hardly use it (rarely write documents), the email client (Outlook) is pretty shonky and the diary loses appointments including the most important ones of the lot.

MY HOLIDAY

To be honest it is a pretty horrible to use of software, new email doesn't, it just sets focus, it will not let me type stuff in and use basic formatting.

But worst of all to me are the icons on the task bar, they are all too similar and outlook looks very much like Teamviewer to me (blue with white circle). So I clck omn looking for an email and find a PC I was connected to.

I have the last File Edit office at home (only use Word) and that is good enough for me, but I have used Libre office and would recommend it.

Anyway on my start menu it says Office 2013 and is full of things I never use, Access* (my cards are all Mastercard or Visa). Excel (the CSV Viewer), Infopath*, OneDrive*, OneNote*, Powerpoint (I prefer PL10s), Publisher*, Skype, Word.

* No idea what they are.

But do we need these tools?

I wonder>

I can knock up basic HTML which I use for any internal documentation, I still do not know what a spreadsheet can that a small self written program cannot do.

And we all hate Outlook in the office.

However I am in the sad situation that the languages I know best are running on MS environments, I have managed to get my IDE up and running in WINE but a few DLLS still preclude the executable.

The question is can I make Win 7 last until retirement?

Oh and we are investigating moving to another email and calendar system. we may even just give up and write our own calendar, it cannot be that difficult.

Re: Leaving Microsoft MS Orifice

hate to say it this way but...here goes: you're an idiot. Outlook is far easier to comprehend than Thunderbird (as an example). You're trying to come off as some kind of tech saavy individual, but you simply sound like a 'tard, unable to make Outlook work....seriously? Every Linux zealot I know can handle Outlook (usually within the first 3 minutes....). What's wrong with you?

Re: Leaving Microsoft

I hate to break it to you but the reason openoffice hasn't gained much ground is because MS office is just a whole lot better.

Oh hello Microsoft Marketing department, back from holiday?

First of all, the fact that you use openoffice for the statement suggests you haven't been LibreOffice 5 of late.

Secondly, the 80/20 rules comes down heavily in favour of LibreOffice - I really do not need to blow $400/seat or whatever monthly ripoff you'll charge for the online version to get basic word processing and spreadsheet work done.

Thirdly, only LibreOffice is properly ODF compliant, and as we work a lot with companies that also switch to ODF (some for the same reason as us - trust that the format of archived files will still be readable in 5 years time) it seems best to stick with it.

Fourth, MS Excel pivot tables seem to be strangely unable to work on LibreOffice, so for those that use this feature we've decided to ditch MS Office as well. As before, we want to be able to read these files in years to come.

Fifth, and probably the most problematic point for you: using LibreOffice makes our people pretty much OS independent. They can use Windows, OSX, Linux - it makes no difference in operation or page rendition. We've mostly OSX desktops, but work is underway to evaluate if we can't provide Linux desktops for admin tasks as we can lock them down for reasons of confidentiality (we can run terminals from a boot image then). As for Windows - well, no, we're no longer wasting our time on that.

Re: most MS licencing schemes allow you to install the software...

In my experience, Microsoft licensing schemes allow members of the IT department to install the software at home as well, but not everyone on the network. There are discounted student licensing rates for those enrolled at accredited schools, but they are not completely free.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

"Actually, most MS licencing schemes allow you to install the software on a home device as well. Sometimes more than one."

Which might be all fine and dandy, but NOT if you're not running (crashing?) an ms operating system.

And as far as I'm concerned Wine's for running the occasional bit of real software that has not made it to the 'Nix world usually 'cos it's an ancient bit of legacy code which would probably never run on the latest from slurp in any case.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Some textbooks become outdated as fast as software, it is a common practice among editors to attempt to render the second hand market useless. There may also be some devices and consumables which are not cheap at all - as said, try an art school.

You can also sell software second hand, if you own a valid license. Of course trying to resell wharez is a different thing...

That said, I appreciate the Pi effort to deliver a very cheap device for everybody. Yet in some schools they may have to teach using the software students are going to use on their job. Again, an art school that would use GIMP instead of Photoshop and Illustrator risk only to damage its students, who will be forced to re-learn the industry standard application - and here Windows machines can be cheaper than Apple ones (but some schools even suggest the latter).

Same for CAD software (engineering, architecture, etc.), for example. Who wants to start at disadvantage? Just to assert someone political beliefs?

Of course IT oriented training courses today should teach Linux also - yet the hardware and the like has not a small price... some IT books cost more than software licenses, and becomes outdated as well. And no, you can't learn from the Internet only. Too much disorganized stuff, and not rarely utterly crap copied here and there without understanding really.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

"Yet in some schools they may have to teach using the software students are going to use on their job. Again, an art school that would use GIMP instead of Photoshop and Illustrator risk only to damage its students, who will be forced to re-learn the industry standard application - and here Windows machines can be cheaper than Apple ones (but some schools even suggest the latter)."

Oh, this, so much! Where industry-standard specialised software rules, especially in the creative world, knowing the software packages used is a Big Deal(TM). Some will say, 'oh, but, but... GIMP is so easy to use once you get used to it,' and they're not necessarily wrong, but they're missing the point.

A company wants to see your portfolio, but they also want to know you have knowledge in the software they use. Sure, some companies will retrain, but there are a lot of people out there that have an awesome portfolio AND know the commonly used software, whether it be Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, ZBrush, or whatever. Good luck finding a company that uses all 'free' software.

Re: Leaving Microsoft @Hans1

Cheers mate, I have had people recommend switching to other CAD packages on Linux, but I like my AutoCAD and have spent a fair while getting to know it. The fact it wouldn't run properly on Linux was a real pain and frankly a Linux killer for me. I'll give PLAY a shot.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

It depends what you think "school" is for.

Some institutions do job-skills training, in which case, go ahead with the industry standard.

Primary, secondary, and higher education are about teaching people to think, about the learning process. Industry can pay for its own training. If you're learning about light and shade at a conceptual level for graphic design or animation, you don't need to know the key-presses for a particular product and it isn't the role of educational institutions to further the business interests of a particular vendor. If vendors want to also offer students discounts, that's fine, but the educational institution should be focusing on the teaching and the learning of ideas and skills which can be applied generally.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Although I agree it may be better for the student not to be forced to re-learn the industry standard application, nonetheless those that cannot adopt new tools under the same fundamental concepts of the software are doom to fail.

In a few years in time, autocad alternative software will exist. In a few years in time, flash will be replace by html5 on web. In a few years in time, Photoshop will have competition for alternatives. In fact, those examples are already happening.

However, the fundamental concepts of the software remind the same. Whether it is vector drawing, scripting or pixel altering.

As long as, they are taught the concept not the procedure, they can adopt. Just like the fishing rod, if you teach them how to use a fishing rod to fish, they will only know how to fish with a fishing rod. If you teach them the concept of fishing equipment, they will know how to adopt better tools and better strategics to fish.

And for art students, if they can't do a minor photoshopping with ms paint, I consider their study incomplete. There will come one day those artists arrive with the required software missing and a deadline ahead. It will be up to them to adopt to a solution.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

"But books can remain useful for some time afterwards - at the very least you can sell them second hand."

I can see you've never bought text books for a university course where the lecturer has failed to gain tenure and consequently their pet texts are almost impossible to give away, never mind sell. Strangely enough text books in this category often have that same lecturer's name on the front cover.

Re: Textbooks @Kernel

And increasingly academia is getting fed up with over greedy publishers. These days self publishing a complicated bit of typesetting is becoming trivially simple, I suspect in some cases as easy or easier than going through a traditional publisher.

It often goes something like this:

"Oh - and you'll need a copy of my new textbook <Fancy Title on obscure topic>. Go grab yourself a copy a copy off my bit of the UNIVERSITY WEBSITE. Here's the URL. If you really want a printed copy go ahead - it's Creative Commons, but it's 1257 pages . I've tried to make most of it readable in black and white but ideally you'd like at least some pages in colour. Print the bits you need. Or you can buy a bound copy from LULU. But be warned that I tend to update it quite frequently."

There's a difference between a new edition because it's needed and changing the exercises to make using an old edition deliberately difficult.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Why on earth did I abandon M$ all these years ago? What was I smoking back then?

Must have been a normal cigarette because given the facts, you were clearly thinking straight.

As I stated many times before, I miss having the opportunity to be an utter pain in the behind for MS because there is no way in hell I would have let them get away with downgrading any of my machines to Windows 10 without facing the costs - after all, if it happens without my permission, it also happens without my agreement to whatever terms of the EULA survive after UK law has stripped everything that is deemed unreasonable. I'd add a criminal investigation, of course, as there is also the small but relevant detail that doing something to a machine without the owner's permission is a criminal offence and trust me, I'd get the police off its rear end

I agree with @BobChip - I'm missing out on a lot of fun.

On the other hand, I have been able to get something done consistently now for close to 10 years. No interruptions, no major crashes and no. waiting. for. a. machine. because. it. needs. to. download. and. install. Yet. Another. Patch. which somehow has to be done when I'm using the machine instead of overnight because it also involves Yet Another Reboot which always includes the excitement of waiting if the machine actually restarts at all - not exactly an uncommon event either.

No, my OSX and Linux machines .. just work. And now we have this company wide it turns out to be cheaper too, and not just because of fewer lost hours labour.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

Re: Leaving Microsoft

You have not used Microsoft for 10 years so your opinion is useful BECAUSE ?

Oh, I have used it. At client sites. Usually we're called in to clean up the mess that Yet Another Windows Virus has made and see if we can at least ensure client data is safe (there are still some crypto blackmailers active). Unfortunately, we're usually called in AFTER things have gone awry. The more fun assignments are companies whose CEO has at some point been in our office to see how we're getting on without Microsoft. Some are sold immediately and want us to convert them, the bigger ones usually sign up as soon as they've see the hard figures. The really clever ones first run a 3 month trial to validate the figures for themselves, which is fine with us.

We're not really into conversions, our remit is high grade security and this tends to happen more as a side effect. It's just too much like hard work keeping any data safe on a Microsoft infrastructure. It's like building a bunker out of merengue. Too much work, and doomed to fail from the outset.

Re: Leaving Microsoft

"Why on earth did I abandon M$ all these years ago? What was I smoking back then? Think of all the fun I could have had sorting out borked machines..... Ah well, it is too late to go back now......."

Yes, you and me, both having done the same terrible mistake, I feel for ya. All the fun, the hours of fun missed at determining which of the sneaky updates would put you back in "W10 is coming" state, and excluding them, edit registry, all of that. All before, the next week, doing it again, just to stay in business, because Windows is clearly a rapidly decaying OS: bad but nonetheless mandatory patches, disk fragmentation etc ...

Never this bad before

I've come across this wonderful update glitch for 10AV. Whereas a program was installed in its own directory, and the data in another it decides to put that program in the Program Files directory with everything else and then of course it doesn't run properly.

Well it keeps me in a job. I'm just hoping our developers are working making our software platform independent.

Re: Never this bad before

Well I did not have that problem my out of place programs are still where I put them as far as I can tell, but my imaging programme suddenly lost one of its necessary files until I located a fix for that wonderful 'enhancement'. Perhaps they could use the new version as a panel game contest, e.g. guess the next failure. Or what has gone wrong now

Re: Never this bad before

Perhaps they could use the new version as a panel game contest, e.g. guess the next failure. Or what has gone wrong now

Would be an antiquated game show format - they have been doing that for years. MS has been selling hope since MS-DOS 3.20 - hope that the next version would have all the problems dealt with. Of course, that never happened because then there would not have been the incentive to upgrade - they made that mistake with Win XP (not helped by the utter failure that Vista "you-moved-the-mouse-confirm?" was).

Re: Never this bad before

My Windows 10 machine has been crashing (followed by forcing me to wait several minutes whilst it "collects information"). It went through the entire lifespan of Windows 8/8.1 without crashing once that I recall.

Happy Anniversary, Microsoft.

Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Given the availability of low cost medium capacity SSDs its surprising (and very annoying) that Win10 doesn't provide a simple option for choosing " O/S & applications on C:, User & Data areas on D:" Instead you have to set it up with everything on C: and then start re-directing specific folders onto D:. Even after doing this I still find bits and piece ending up on C.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Huh,

There are technically ways to do this by customising the install but it is still a total kludge, a seamless storage system like Linux/Unix has but without the quirky fractured historical structure would be great . There is also the issue of the C:\ProgramData, a folder you never get to choose the location of that Visual Studio (and others?) insist on copying what appear to be vast portions of their setup files to and are apparently incapable of uninstalling/updating if that folder is removed/unintentionally altered. I guess they might argue that they would be designing a feature into Win10 that could be irrelevant in 12-18 months, an affordable 2TB SSD and the issue is gone for me.

Re: Huh,

"There is also the issue of the C:\ProgramData, a folder you never get to choose the location of that Visual Studio (and others?) insist on copying what appear to be vast portions of their setup files to ...."

ive never tried this with that folder, but you could probably do it with a junction

Re: Huh,

ProgramData is a system folder (that's why it is hidden by default), you shouldn't mess with that without exactly knowing what you're doing. It was designed to store system-wide application data which don't belong to Program Files.

The "modify/restore" capabilities of some setup requires setup data to be available somewhere, and sometimes they are put there or in config.msi (may depend on the installer technology used).

Setups should ask if the user wants to be able to perform setup activities without the original setup files (once they did), but it looks that letting user choose anything in setups now is strictly forbidden. Terabytes hard disks made setup sloppy, but then again smaller SSDs shown the deficiencies of marketing-driven, luser-oriented development.

Re: Huh,

Is VMWare badly written software an MS issue? Sure, there are lot of badly written setups which doesn't clean their own mess on uninstall. Often are folders and files created by the application at run-time which the uninstaller doesn't know about. I'v seen .rpm and .deb packages with the same issues, if you like - they also remove what you tell them to remove on uninstall, they don't know about what an application does while running, nor the OS know.

Windows is moving towards "containerize" the applications (thus it will clean up the mess itself), but that will also mean far less flexibility, and some users will whine anyway.

Re: Huh,

"C:/ProgramData gets full of crap so yes you should unhide it and look inside at regular intervals."

at least it's THERE and not in "C:\Program Files" with the damned white-space in the middle of the directory name... [SQL Server "light" installs its DATA files in the 'Program Files' tree, which is like some kind of file hierarchy violation, grossly violated in fact]

Micro-shaft should seriously do a 'man hier' on a Linux distro and get a freaking CLUE, and THEN stop trying to keep end-users from doing what they want. Fat chance, yeah.

Re: Huh,

Last I checked you CAN move folders from ProgramData, you just have to use a third party tool to create a Symlink so the program doesn't know its been moved. Here is a link to the tool you need from Mark Russinovich of MSFT...

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

By comparison, other OS's have been providing reliable partitioning and mount point capabilities since the 60's and it's even a part of the basic install !!

Last I recall about doing this on Windows involved a boot disc as windows couldn't move its user partition whilst booted and even after moving it and doing a mklink, some parts of Windows still failed, such as winsat's disk performance test

I understand that the MS advice is still not to split OS and data like this, yet a supported solution doesn't seem to exist. This just shows a complete lack of understanding by MS of what people want given the technologies available and as a way of separating data for when a the inevitable rebuild is necessary

Luckily, this isn't a problem for me any more. Long live the penguin !

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

I had a couple of boxen from Dell which, due to various purchasing agreements and cockups, came with Windows 8 on SSD instead of Windows 7. Could I roll it back? Not without a week's solid work and fitting spinning rust - not only did the disk controller need a driver not on the standard install iso, but the actual Samsung SSD itself did (no fallback mode to a default driver), and so did the USB sockets, all of them. No floppy, no CD drive. I tried baking my own custom Win 7 install DVD, which I hadn't done before - fail. I've never had so much pain getting an OS onto a PC before. I'm wondering if this double driver issue is screwing with Windows 10 as well.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

It looks you're trying to use Windows as if it was Linux, and no, it doesn't work that way - for example Windows has no "user partition", any other partition you may create at install time is just a partition with no specific meaning.

You can then redirect users folders to other locations (https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh848267)

Also it looks you don't know you can mount a partition in a mount point, no need to use links. You can mount a partition using Disk Manager or from the command line using diskpart.

Yes, trying to use Windows as an OS designed in the '60s won't work, believe me. Just like trying to use Linux as if it was Windows.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

There are indeed different ways to skin a cat and I am fully aware that you can do both the above.

For info, your link only applies to Win8 and above, this "fix" was common on Win7 when SSD's were small; expensive and had short lifespan's due to their maximum write cycle limit on each block.

From memory, the folder specific redirection method was less reliable when I looked at this and it either needed policies which implies the more expensive versions of the OS. Alternately, on all versions it could be configured on a per user basis, which is a whole lot more work than mklink at the c:\users level.

As to mounting a drive at a folder, I used to use that for multi-slot memory card adaptors, rather than having 8 different drive letters, however Windows used to conveniently forget the configuration and re-create them randomly or when new hardware was added, so I stopped using that.

Both techniques resulted in an OS junction (as a form of reparse point), and therefore worked in an identical manner, so your point is mute.

The point that you missed is that if the OS provides a bunch of features (and ALL of these are out of the box), then they should work reliably and with all other OS features. They should not fail randomly during an update or only work on sunny days where the temperature is between 15 and 21 degrees.

As to OS's - if you look outside of your broken Window, you will find that virtually ALL OS's have a bunch of common concepts and functionality, The idea of breaking up disc for a bunch of reasons exists on ALL OS's. Historically this was for capacity and throughput reasons. Today its for resilience, maintainability and throughput reasons.

No serious sysadmin or architect would consider installing a server with a single partition - most would separate the OS, paging area, apps area, and various data areas, often this will be targeted at different storage platforms such as local disk for pagefile, SAN's for data volumes etc.

The fact that MS can't make Windows work reliably and handle simply configurations (that have existed for decades) means that the design and testing is not being done by people who understand how systems are used and why.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

@Adair. So seems to be the reported fault in the article! Mine updated to Windows 10, froze, and I figured I might as well go to Windows 7, as I was going to need to do that anyway for one of them - the end user specifically requested that. I only had the one SSD in there, not multiple drives, but it was definitely related to the SSD and specifically the make and model of SSD which wouldn't work at all with the generic disk device driver. Hang on, I'll look up the model... No, can't find it in my notes. It was something to do with version 4 of the SSD firmware or something - version 3 would have worked. It was an M2 board; a 950 EVO?

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

It looks to me you're still whining just because Windows doesn't work like Linux. It has a different design, accept that. If you want to redirect folders you have to do it in the designed way. Attempt your DIY tricks, and it will fail, what do you expect? Try to outsmart the OS in Linux too, and you'll be looking for troubles as well.

You have to disable automount if you're going to mount new disks in a different way. Disk Manager/diskpart are your friend again.

With Windows you can partition the disks whatever you like and use those partitions as you like, and is done routinely by competent syadmin. Just you do it after setup, and not while installing.

I routinely did installs of Oracle, including RAC (yes, in Windows too) with Fibre Channel and iSCSI SANs without issues, since Windows 2003.

If you can't, it's just because you want it to work like Linux and not like Windows. In Windows the swap file is just a file and doesn't need a separate dedicated partition. For performance reason once it could be advisable to have it on a separate physical disk, but now you usually want to avoid it used much, it isn't required.

Anyway, on most desktop systems today even most Linux distro suggest a single partition. For desktop users, it may be very difficult to estimate the needed partitions size from the beginning.

The *nix design was not the only design. Windows took a lot from VMS. *nix design is till around only because Torvalds used that model. Had he used another, *nix model would have been quite forgotten.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

@AC

You are of course aware that the title of the article is about a Windows defect with SSD (Not Linux). The dialogue draws parallels to how other OS's (including Linux) do it properly without those problems. If you don't like that, then its not my fault!

Now, to correct a couple of observations / misconceptions :

Its not a "DIY trick" to use a built-in OS command, that's called system administration.

The reason that people put a pagefile on a different disk on most OS's is because other volumes like the OS and data are often replicated on the SAN to a DR location. There is no value in putting temporary data onto the SAN and replicating it since its pointless after a reboot; reduces cache efficiency on the SAN and wastes WAN bandwidth. This approach also stops the pagefile growing and filling the C: drive, which also makes Windows die. You state "page file is not used much" - that depends on how the system is built, don't forget this is where crashdumps go, so it is used.

I don't think you are right re the one partition view on Linux, certainly you can do it that way, but its the most basic install and for exactly the same reason as on Windows, separating data and OS is good practice, hence the separate partition mantra. Resizing volumes or moving data is easy too, but again that is not the original mail thread which is about two separate disks - one ssd and one spinning rust.

As to Oracle on Windows, with iSCSI - I take it that you've not done large or high volume databases work then ? Would you try and put the data partitions on the OS volume there too ???

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Again, you're trying to do things the wrong way. Links are not the supported way to relocate user folders. Repeat. Maybe you'll understand you're trying to do it stubbornly in the wrong way. It doesn't matter it's a system command, even "format" is a system command and you don't use it to relocate folders. You have a very limited understanding of "system administration", you learnt a few tricks some time ago, and want to apply them everywhere, even in situations when they just create trouble. It's the lazy, incompetent, outdated sysadmin way. Found it several times, on Windows and Linux, and had to clean up the mess.

In Windows you can move the swap file if you like - you may just need a small one left on C: exactly for crash dumps.

You can also spread it on multiple volumes. You can also set a max size, so it won't fill the boot volume. It looks your knowledge of Windows is limited and outdated.

Just pointing out there are far less need to do it today. And who said it isn't used? For the matter anonymous memory mapped files go to the swap file as well, to backup memory when needed. Just, for performance reason you need to minimize its use, especially before SSDs.

Who said, again, there's no need to partition? Just desktop users with a single disk usually can't plan well partition size in advance. Servers are fairly more controlled and it is far easier to plan for partition sizes.

My Oracle databases are in the hundred of terabytes and petabyte range, the largest ones. RAC on Dell blade servers and fibre channel SANs, on EMC storage. Highly optimized for a workload with intensive writes. Quite tricky to optimize, especially before SSDs.

The smaller ones used iSCSI over Ethernet, which is not that bad anyway and costs less, especially when NICs and switches has special support.

I won't put database data files not only on the same volume, but on the same physical disks as the OS. Partitioning a single spinning disk may just mean more head movements and worse seek times. Nor I would put database log files on the same physical disk with data.

And, again, you can setup your system as you like with Windows too. You do differently than Linux, and achieve exactly the same. Or you may stubbornly try the wrong way and fire into your own feet, just because of prejudices.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is crashing on some PCs employing a solid-state drive.

The Anniversary operating system is understood to be freezing PCs where Windows 10 is stored on the SSD, but apps and data are on a separate drive.

Its about people (other people) having problems with SSD and spinning rust on the latest version of Windows 10, its got zero to do with me. I don't run that rubbish. I refer you back to how many people including me did this when we did run Windows 7 - using the built in command that says its for making links, hence its name - mklink, it worked well, if you accepted the couple of bugs like winsat not working (nobody cared)

You may disagree or want to do it differently - that is your prerogative. My point stands that the built in commands should work reliably and the very common approach of splitting OS and data needs to be both supported and tested by MS.

You may also disagree that other OS's do it differently and it works perfectly well there.

There is no point being a MS fanboy and getting shouty about facts you can't change.

Partitioning is there, its been there since before DOS, it is supported and used by people, it does give the solutions I mentioned previously re performance and throughput and protecting the sacred C: drive against filling up if you just accept all the defaults.

MS should realise WHY people do this and if there is a different / preferred way, then make it easy to choose during install - and importantly TEST THAT IT WORKS PROPERLY, if they don't, people will engineer solutions and things might break.

Now on your other points. Re SAN, there are many layers between the OS volume, LUN ; supporting raid sets and their underlying spindles, but often you just talk to cache (not disk) anyhow - yet people still separate things for good practice and to optimise IO or throughput, so WHY do you insist its not necessary for a desktop OS - its the same principles ??

Oh and head movement - we're talking an SSD (with no heads to move) and a single disk for data, so limited head movement defined by user data only. In my example of a server with SAN storage and a local disk for temporary data, there can't by definition be increased head movement / latency as there is a single disk for paging to..

There's no prejudice here, just simple facts.

Oh and I don't believe you on write-intensive RAC on blade, there's not enough bandwidth to get all the cache data between nodes to make it work effectively, that's a job for scale-up where the big iron comes in. They use separate partitions too..

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

"The *nix design was not the only design. Windows took a lot from VMS. *nix design is till around only because Torvalds used that model. Had he used another, *nix model would have been quite forgotten."

Re: It looks you're trying to use Windows as if it was Linux

"You can then redirect users folders to other locations (https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh848267)"

Yes you can redirect selected folders (not just any folder) to other locations. This is both a lot more trouble and a lot less reliable than mounting a device/partition to a folder in Linux.

"Also it looks you don't know you can mount a partition in a mount point, no need to use links. You can mount a partition using Disk Manager or from the command line using diskpart."

On the outside this looks very similar to mounting a partition to a folder in Linux. However, mounting the Users directory in Windows on a separate partition is a magic trick (if it's possible at all). Also, again this is not reliable (so I wouldn't risk doing it with the Users directory anyway).

Yes, Linux is modeled after an OS that began to be designed in the late 60's, but with multiple users, directories, and network operation in mind from the beginning. Windows on the other hand is lugging around legacy cruft from an operating system from the 70's that had no users, no directories, and no network operation in mind. That could be part of the reason that some of these things come out looking like tacked on kludges that aren't reliable.

Re: It looks you're trying to use Windows as if it was Linux

OK, they have different design. So what the issue? Windows doesn't work exactly like Linux? It's not Linux and it's not Unix. Windows doesn't manage the Users folder as a mount point, so you have to manage it in a different way than Unix. Can't really understand why people want to manage Windows as Linux, when I use Windows I abide to Windows rules, when I use Linux I abide to its rules, cannot understand why people refuse to learn.

IMHO the Windows solution is far more flexible and advanced (you can redirect some users and not others, it can cache offline folders, you can choose what folders to redirect, it's designed to work with Active Directory) - of course you'll think differently.

And Unix too was designed for relatively few users all running on the same central system, and no portable systems, and large, distributed LANs with many personal systems. And how old the design is shown, for example in the limited and outdated permission system on file and other OS objects.

Re: It looks you're trying to use Windows as if it was Linux

@AC

You still banging your Windows is great drum - even after all the downvotes ?

Just try considering an alternative viewpoint. As I said before, the article is about a problem with your beloved OS - that's a fact, sorry if it troubles you. I work regularly on either OS and make it do what I want.

Now, to correct your latest claims.

IMHO the Windows solution is far more flexible and advanced (you can redirect some users and not others, it can cache offline folders, you can choose what folders to redirect, it's designed to work with Active Directory) - of course you'll think differently.

Redirect some folders and not others - Yup, can do that in Linux, Yet again, its those mount points you seem to like so much

Off-line folders / client side cache - Yup, can do that in Linux. There is built-in file system caching for NFS4, or you can use cacheFS, which has been around since '93 (that's 7 years before Win2K), or you could use SAMBA, for SMB compatibility, which can create the shares or mount shares - with offline support if necessary. or you could implement locally and replicate when you need via rsync, Many options to choose the most appropriate from

Designed to work in AD, that's hardly surprising as its all from MS. Linux obviously doesn't need AD but will directory integrate to a number of directories - LDAP, NIS+ or AD if you need

And Unix too was designed for relatively few users all running on the same central system, and no portable systems, and large, distributed LANs with many personal systems. And how old the design is shown, for example in the limited and outdated permission system on file and other OS objects.

Yes, Unix came from small systems, that because of the hardware that existed way back when, but its equally at home on very small or huge platforms, that's why it runs on Raspberry Pi's, home grade routers (dd-wrt / OpenWRT), laptops, desktops, servers, big-iron, mainframe.

They can be single user, or support large numbers of users, remember serially connected green screens before Windows ?. Obviously today it can run in the same way, but today its more likely that the users will be through a web app. You may want to see the monthly Netcraft report to see which is more popular and therefore has more concurrent users. The same thing happens in enterprises too, but Netcraft can't report on this

File system permissions - Yes, both OS's support discretionary access control method (DAC), this is why Windows has DACL's, or you can elect to use SELinux which implements Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which is something that Windows does not support.

Look outside of Windows, take a look at whats possible, don't be scared by change - embrace it.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

"trying to use Windows as an OS designed in the '60s won't work, believe me. Just like trying to use Linux as if it was Windows."

here we go again with the FUD. If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't make claims like this. yeah you are implying that UNIX-like operating systems were "designed in the 60's". So was the Saturn V by the way, and nobody's sent people to the moon since the last Apollo moon shot, so maybe the 60's designs were pretty GOOD, ya know?

It's ALSO like claiming that the Intel x86 and amd64 architectures were "designed in the 60's" because they bear some resemblance to the architecture of the IBM 360... (which, by the way, was an awesome machine in its day).

And I use FreeBSD and Linux for nearly everything. So I don't need Windows until I have some specific "written for windows" software that I need to run. Or if I need to do windows software development, which is happening LESS and LESS these days...

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

The FUD is what Linux worshiper writes every time there's an article about Windows and show all their lack of knowledge about how Windows is designed and actually work. Lots of outdated info read here and there on the Internet from lame source, repeated over and over to try to change them into truth. And it it is different from *nix, then it's BAAAAAAAD, because of course Unix creators were touched by some $DEITY and did everything right. C'mon, grow up.

Nobody would fly in a Saturn V today, believe me. NASA itself would not rate it safe for humans today. And just look at Musk rockets to see what a modern rocket is capable of. Nobody went to the Moon again simply because it's stupidly expensive without any gain.

It's the mindset that something "is perfect and never needs changes" that stifles innovation. Linux will keep the IT world anchored to an outdated world. Because too many people are afraid of changes, and are afraid to learn.

Sure, Microsoft is killing Windows itself, and Linux may win, it will be a jump in the past. The same feeling I have every time I open a Linux desktop application. It looks to me to be still in the '80s. Ugly GUI designs, ugly widgets, ugly fonts... but keep on blindly believing you're using the greatest OS of all times...

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

Windows has already kept the IT world anchored to an outdated world. I mean, drive letters for starters? And starting from C:? The Unix-style single root filesystem concept has aged much more gracefully. Plus still using binary installers with no decent package management system? In 2016? Get it together Microsoft!

Every time I open a Windows desktop application, it looks to me to be still in the '90s. Ugly GUI designs, ugly widgets, ugly fonts... but keep on blindly believing you're using the greatest OS of all times...

Fire up a modern desktop Linux (any popular distro will suffice) and you will see a much more consistent look and feel between all of the included apps within (icons, fonts, widgets, etc) than you will in any modern Windows version, and they aren't even all from one company.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

It's possible mount NTFS formatted drives at a directory location rather than giving them a letter. You could mount a partition on your spinning disk at c:\users and that would nicely separate the OS/progs on the SSD from user data.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

It shows how much Microsoft became really disconnected from how its users actually use a PC.

For example I have a relatively small 256GB SSD (bought when SSD were still expensive, half empty anyway, hosting only the OS and applications), because local data are on a 2TB RAID 1. This setup is easier to backup, and easier to reinstall if needed.

But again in the bright minds of those in charge now at MS, it looks only the single disk laptop user exists, or worse, the mobile device user.

Of course, the solution for MS will be to move everything to the cloud, and store nothing locally... there are risks Nadella could be tempted to turn Windows into a clone of ChromeOS.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

This current "SSD freeze" issue was raised by people a mixture of SSDs and HDDs. The freeze is typically indicated by 100% disk usage - but not necessarily on the SSD! The "100% disk usage" issue has been around ever since 10 came out. Either Microsoft never got to the bottom of the issue in the first place OR didn't incorporate the fix in the Anniversary build. If the latter, this is a big mess up.

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

You'd be surprised that internally it doesn't use drive letters. Drives letter are mapped to volumes (run once in your life SysInternal's WinObj to look at some of the kernel structures...), because the shell (and applications) are still designed around that.

There's a lot of ignorance about how the Windows NT line really works. It has a very different internal design from the DOS/Win3.x/Win9.x line, but there are compatibility layers to mimic their behaviours. Time to get rid of this? Maybe, but too many application would need a rewrite.

Even multiple desktops was a feature available for a very long time, which was surfaced to the user in Windows 10 only. Windows kernel developers are far ahead of what it allowed to sell.

Is it still called Software As A Service...

Satya Nadella fault

What happens when you fire the majority of your QA department and lump it on to your developers and users.

Having a dedicated team, removed from the development of the code, who create the test cases (programmatic testing group) is far more reliable than having the developer of the code test their own code. Also having your users as the main testers (insider program), what it looks like, as they do not report in problems or actually test the system any more than just running their games.

MS may no longer have a QA department

Re: MS may no longer have a QA department

The calibre upgrade was a temporary stop-gap that could happily be brought forward for the Anniversary Update as the hand-held bazooka upgrade is running a little behind schedule, that's now pencilled in for 2017.

Windows 10: you are NOT a product!

whats wrong with this the way I see it is that testers testing the anniversary update have found a bug, what people don't seem to be picking up on is that home users are now the tester's for updates. That's what all the force manditory updates is all about you test it find the bugs and issue's, MS fix them before they roll out to enterprise edition.

This is what people said was going to happen with windows 10 and oh look its whats happening, MS screwing customer experience in new and wonderful ways.

Where are all the MS apologists?

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

Serious answer to a humorous question, many of us who got labelled "MS apologists" such as myself - I had endless arguments with people on these forums - simply aren't as inclined to defend Windows 10 because it has alienated us for one reason or another. For example, I despise the way it has become so hard to prevent your system reporting your behaviour back to Microsoft (I had to edit the registry to turn off the sending of how I was using my computer to them). So whilst there's still a lot I greatly like about Windows - such as the ACLs and Powershell, I'm just not really inclined to leap to MS's defence against all those who attack it. I used to - because I was a systems programmer and I know how much work and talent goes into an OS like Linux or Windows. But really, after basically receiving a big Up Yours from MS over the past year with privacy and control of my own computer, I just don't find it in me to argue in its defence anymore.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

"But on as a side note Linux with its reliable stable secure OS can now concentrate on the user experience and they have come on in leaps and bounds in the last 12 months."

How many years have Linux fanboys been saying this? Must be at least 20. 19982000200220032006201020132016 2017 is going to be the year of the Linux desktop!

On that note, I shall leave you guys to your Windows 10 bashing. It's a bit creepy. Rather like a someone who keeps stalking his ex-girlfriend's facebook to insist that he's totally over her, and life has been so great since he left, and he's not fixated on her and he's happy tell everyone so, repeatedly.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

"Rather like a someone who keeps stalking his ex-girlfriend's facebook to insist that he's totally over her, and life has been so great since he left, and he's not fixated on her and he's happy tell everyone so, repeatedly."

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

@JustEnough - No, no, no, no - you are completely misunderstanding.

While there are some Linux zealots who misguidedly believe that it's all about knocking Windows off its perch, the truth is far more subversive. Windows deserves its place, its perfectly entitled to exist, and has a lot going for it - although the way MS are behaving you would begin to doubt it.

The last thing we need is for Linux to become the new Windows - meet the new boss, same as the old boss. No, what we need is for a capitalist profit driven corporate multi-national entity to learn what the word 'responsibility' means, and then to apply that learning in an ethical manner towards its customers. If they can do that they may have a long term future.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

Personally, I'm massively impressed with the number of authorative system architects here who have the power and clout to decide, organisationally wide, to swap windows for Linux. I mean, aside from the radical change in infrastructure, the retraining of all your support staff, the ditching and replacing of all non-COTS stuff that all organisations have in their closers, the end-user training and engagement alone must've been a mighty, might undertaking. The level of trust these massive companies have in the vision of one man waving a Linux banner is quite remarkable; I've never seen a board be ready to take such progressive risks

...or are all the Linux fans all tiddly IT manager in little companies running a dozen clients or so? Or perhaps they just use Linux at home because they don't need or require any standard software for whatever it is they do with their PCs? Not gamers...not entertainment...not anything you might actually want to do...

Still, if you like having to write your own drivers, or battling with format incompatibilities, or leaning pages of archaic syntax left over from the seventies, then yeah, Linux is your weapon of choice.

Personally, I have to admit that in my company no one has the power to switch to Linux and I shudder at the thought of attempting all the training and troubleshooting that would inevitably follow such a switch.

yeah, win 10 isn't perfect, but then no OS is. And, if you know what you're doing, a lot of the issues can be mitigated or avoided.

Having rolled out win10 to over 7000 users now (XenDesktop, thin clients, direct access etc. etc.) including a BYOD strategy for homeworkers, I can confidently say that it does work. Mostly.

The pain of win 10 management and the learning curve involved in a real ICT environment pales in comparison to choosing a flavour of Linux to replace it with and that's just a real-world thing I'm afraid.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

@AC - 'Personally, I'm massively impressed...'

I suspect you're onto something, but even so perhaps for those who know Linux as well as others know Windows the challenge and trouble is rather less than for anyone who is eyeing Linux as though it is a foreign land.

Certainly Linux is no panacea, anyone contemplating a wholesale switch really needs to know why it will be so much better for them than maintaining the status quo, however infuriating the status quo may be.

Re: however infuriating the status quo may be

The status quo only exists because there are umpteen million companies who's CEO and personnel have grown up on Windows and they are too scared to change - for many rather good reasons.

The new crop of IT users - today's yoof, have grown up on Android and iPhone, Google Docs and Twitter. Microsoft is nowhere in that set. And when they get to set up their own companies - and some of them will - I wager they will see zero benefit in signing up for an OS they don't know that cannot do any more than what Google Docs can.

That is why Microsoft is so desperately pushing Win 1 0. It's the last cartridge it has to stay relevant. MS must absolutely stay in the minds of as many as possible to forestall the day all new market deciders say "Microsoft ? Who that ?".

Re: however infuriating the status quo may be

If Windows was only the OS, a web browser, and Office, you could be right. The issue is there are thousands of professional applications that exist for Windows (and/or OSX), and don't exist for Linux - and the Linux replacement - when they exist - are usually unusable professionally, unless you engage a never-ending battle with the application itself, the OS, and compatibility issues with your suppliers/customers. Same is true if you go the WINE route. And you lose any tech support, you're wholly on your own. If your job is not IT, why should you look for troubles, and lose customers and money?

Add to them specific professional devices which are again unsupported under Linux, and you should understand why people who are more interested to carry on their daily job tasks quickly and easily, and not assert a political stance, are not interested at all in switching to Linux.

Other thing the datacenter where the cost savings can be huge, and a PHP/MySQL application can run better on Apache on Linux, especially if you have to run hundred or thousand of servers (still you may want to use an expensive software like VMWare...)

Still, you're going to encounter Windows Domain Controllers to run Active Directory because Linux still fails to deliver something comparable. Or Exchange, because again workgroup solutions in Linux are far behind.

Re: however infuriating the status quo may be

@AC - 'If Windows was only the OS...'

There are thousands of applications available for Linux (excluding the ones that run perfectly through WINE), and many of them are far superior to the hobbled proprietory alternatives available on Windows, but so what?

The thing is your argument only really holds water for those situations that match your case, and that includes mindset---if you are determined that something won't work it probably won't.

So, I don't really understand your point. Clearly Linux works for many people, and Windows works for many people. Windows also 'works' for many in the sense that as far as they are concerned it's the only choice they have, because they lack the awareness, the knowledge, the interest, or even the choice to use anything different.

As has already been said Linux is not a panacea---all OSes are crap in their own way---it's a case of understanding why you are using the OS you are using, and understanding whether any of the alternatives would serve your needs better, notwithstanding the crappiness.

Anyone who turns the decision into a religious war deserves all they get.

Re: however infuriating the status quo may be

Which professional applications are available for Linux? Image editing and creation? Video editing? CAD? Business applications? "Hobbled proprietory alternatives"? That says everything - first, there are proprietary applications under Linux also, especially when you go the professional route, and, again, the issue is "proprietary", aka "software I have to pay for".

However, most applications for Linux are applications for system administrators and developers - a closed circle.

See, I use both Windows and Linux. I also have FreeNAS systems because of ZFS.

But what you repeat over and over people don't use Linux because they are ignorant (they lack the awareness, etc. etc.) is the same stupid idea most religions have about people who "don't believe". Windows user never worship their OS - they just use it because is convenient. Most Linux users writing here do, and turn this into a religious war against the "proprietary and closed source software", and seem to have the mission to convert all those "infidels". It's really getting annoying.

The truth is people don't use Linux because beyond the IT world there's very little applications, most of those applications are written for Windows and OSX that covers the 98% of end-user PCs. Very little incentive to port anything to Linux, and the GUI still lacks that standardization Windows and OSX have (yes, I don't like too the flat look of 8 and beyond, still it is a standard, at least everything look the same).

So instead of discussing about why SSD freezes under Windows 10 - an OS I don't like at all for its telemetry, forced upgrades, and schizofrenic UI - we're here discussing Windows vs. Linux because the Linux jihad can't stop. But you're right, you can't discuss with people who can't listen.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

Still, if you like having to write your own drivers, or battling with format incompatibilities, or leaning pages of archaic syntax left over from the seventies, then yeah, Linux is your weapon of choice.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

[awaiting downvotes]

There you go.

I doesn't mean (for me) flying fuck if win10 is the best os in the world with largest application base. The problem is slurp's attitude. That they own my system and can send data out of my system and advertise products on my system and even install products on my system as they will.

I am head of a tiny software company and our clients are moving away from slurp/win by my recommendation. So you may despise us 'tiddly IT managers' but there are a lot of us. And when we recommend something to our customers they know and trust (remember trust, you still trust slurp?) that we do not recommend something lightly and that us recommending something is solely for their benefit.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

I agree, the slurp sucks and I don't trust anyone who slurps because they can. Still, if I take the attitude of only using software that doesn't slurp, I'd have to throw out a lot of standard software and again that'd not be practical for a large-scale operation. Also, the slurp is (almost) non existent at the Enterprise level.

I don't despise IT managers in SMEs; I'm actually somewhat jealous of the power they can exercise over their architecture, but you have to recognise that we can't all just switch platforms overnight. The logistics would be a nightmare. I already have users who can barely understand a mouse, let alone an entirely new desktop environment!

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

Still, if you like having to write your own drivers, or battling with format incompatibilities, or leaning pages of archaic syntax left over from the seventies, then yeah, Linux is your weapon of choice.

Re: Where are all the MS apologists?

"simply aren't as inclined to defend Windows 10 because it has alienated us for one reason or another"

that was me, essentially, before ".Not". When Micro-shaft's Developer's Conferences became 'all about ".Not"' I no longer participated. I thought their direction was _WRONG_ back THEN, and it's just changed names and appearance in Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic [still the same old ".Not" initiative principles, only worse].

Then I discovered OS/X was based on a version of UNIX (Mach) and I decided that there were now 3 operating systems worth knowing anything about (this was in 2002 or 2003): Windows, UNIX/Linux, and [at that time] PalmOS.

Now, PalmOS is essentially gone now, but there are STILL 3 OSs worth knowing anything about: UNIX/Linux/Android, Windows, and iOS, in THAT order of importance. And, last I checked, iOS and Win-10-nic were TIED in overall popularity on stat counter...

In heaven's name, why?

Hello:

" ... tried to roll back and it destroyed my system. Hung up in the process. It wouldn't boot again. I had to wipe the entire SSD and start over with a clean install of Win 10 (anniversary edition unfortunately). It was freezing again soon after, but I managed to go over an hour last night with no freezing then I had to leave it. I'm going to get back on it after work ... "

*DISCLAIMER* I understand before hand the raft of downvotes I am about to recieve !!! Please go easy ....

I used to use Unix back in 1999 and found it ok to work on (this was already installed in a office) now recently I wanted to setup a Pi as a VPN node, so installed Raspian, setup VPN (This was a MASSIVE PITA), but got it working in the end so was happy.

Now came the part to install SQUID proxy and configure it to local access to the network, Could not for life nor money get this blasted thing to work this drove me insane and trying to follow tutorials and guides and FAQ's didnt help, nobody I knew could help or guide me.

Installed a VM, double clicked VPN software, job done ... as it was a VM didn't need to worry about a proxy, but I have little doubt it will be just as easy if I needed to.

Im sorry guys I tried I really did, and probably would of moved a bunch of other services over to Linux, but ..... It's so damn difficult and / or complicated compared to windows .....

Personally when setting up services I find the main issues when using the internet to configure something is that you have multiple versions of the software and flavours of Linux and architectures.

The best way I find is to rather than try to configure off these is to understand the theory behind them then use that along with your versions configuration to configure the service. Don't discount anything that could be wrong, I have spent many hours trying to set up an access point and found that the issue wasn't my configuration but that my card won't go into managed mode yet I can still get it to set up as an AP so lots more work needed with kernel drivers and the like to get it working with hostapd. It's also worth checking dependencies with regards to configurations as sometimes if service a is not configured correctly service b will not work, there's also the subtle differences in the configurations of different versions of Linux to contend with and also the default settings after installation as it's not always clear that you need to modify something before it will work. It's also best to go into it with the mindset of I know it works so I'll be damned if I'm going to let it beat me.

As for Windows 10 Anniversary update, it's like that birthday you had when you were a kid where your parents thought it would be fun to hire a clown not realising it would give you nightmares forever.

Would of...!!!

Proxy

@Known

Often its hard because people don't get the concepts before they dive in, which means that they can't break the problem down to its component parts when they hit an issue, so they get frustrated and give up. To try and get things going, here's some pointers for you.

1. You generally don't need to proxy your local LAN, there is no benefit, you have plenty of bandwidth on the LAN and adding a second hop just increases traffic and latency.

2. You either set up in transparent mode, which means you need to use iptables or similar to redirect the proxyable traffic onwards to Squid. Think of this as pipework to join things together. In this mode, no client changes are necessary.

3. Alternately, you set up in proxy mode, so you need to point ALL clients at the proxy(generally in the browser config). You can also use wpad.dat/proxy.pac files, but this involves the configuration of DNS and a web server to host the wpad.dat. Optionally you can also distribute a DHCP option to point clients at the proxy.

4. Proxying https is different to http and generally harder. This involves a whole bunch of certificates that need to be created and distributed so that the proxy can break the ssl stream and re-encrypt, which means new trusted root certs on all devices.,

5. Not everything is proxyable - for example VPN traffic, so you still need working routing.

6. You don't need to proxy just because you have a VPN, they are very different technologies.

Note that ALL of this is identical for Windows and Linux as the standards are OS neutral.

Re: Proxy

@Dwarf - The reason for selecting a proxy was so that I could selectively route certain traffic from 1 machine through the VPN whilst keeping all other traffic unfiltered. Sounds like I could of done with your help earlier though :D and yes the technologies used are identical, just a hell of a lot easier to configure on one of them for me ;) That all said, I will be venturing down this route to setup a VPN access point at some undefined point in the future, although easier to pull off, I might ping a SOS into the forums here :)

@hplasm Apologies for the grammatical mistake. I'm glad to know all my points and opinions are invalid due to an issue with my grammar. Looking at your previous posts I'm not sure if your angry at the grammar or the fact I used an MS product ??

Re: I'm not sure if your angry at the grammar or the fact I used an MS product

They're just angry that you said something negative about the Holy Linux, May The Bearded One Ever Keep It From The Unwashed Masses.

Each side has a cult, and neither can accept Real World Experience. It's always because you're too dumb, can't spell, can't read, can't "get it". Never because it's hard to grasp for beginners.

Personally, for every "expert" laying in on a newbie, I would dearly like to introduce them to a (mandatory) one-hour session with a karate black belt, 7th dan. The object of the lesson will be preparing for the black belt. You can guess the penalty for saying "it's not easy" . . .

Thank you Dell

the fix was quite easy for my machines.

Both my intel chipset based machines (centrino based Lenovo x201 & Z68 based desktop), was hit with this, but the fix for me was insultingly easy.

I installed iRST which replaced the generic disk controller driver and no more random lockups on either machine post Anniversary update. The lightbulb moment came when i realised on my previous installs i always installed iRST right after installing Intels chipset drivers. (again replacing generic MS ones)

few posts on reddit claiming that installing AMD sourced disk controller drivers also has a degree of success work for some of the affected AMD users (or Nvidia if they are available for Nforce) ofc thats only valid if there are vendor specific drivers available.

Wonder how long it will take MS to figure that out, i mean who in their right mind ever leaves generic MS signed/data drivers if they can help it?

Re: the fix was quite easy for my machines.

The disk controller may fix high disk usage issues, but I find very strange it could be the source of redirected files. It's since Vista that Windows can redirect files silently, first to allow old application writing to read-only folders to work, but now MS augmented that capability to allow for packaging desktop applications for the store. Maybe it got out of hands, and now plain setups too are somehow redirected.

No, it was SCSI drives only (most NT systems were booted from NTFS drives, c'mon). We had that issue because we tried the SP first on desktops which were IDE systems, all fine - then we tried to update the first server that was SCSI...

Re: If I ran Microsoft, I'd easily fix all of this...

We have one PC in our small office that (I use that) has windows 10 on it. No one wanted Windows 10, it was installed one evening after the trickery/dishonesty with the close "X" button and has been the bane of my life ever since. For starters it's in French, the computer came from our parent company who are French so that's logical. However we had hoped to change this to English when we eventually downgraded to Windows 10 as I don't speak French. After getting sick of the thing crashing every thirty minutes due to the Nvidia display driver I took matters into my own hands and did multiple updates of the driver until it became stable (won't be telling IT Support I did that). Searching for something in the contents of the files isn't enabled (or wasn't on mine) by default and I've just had to try and set this going so I can find things.

So having stopped the frequent crashes I was confident that the end of losing work unexpectedly was over. Sadly I didn't know that it no longer asked you for permission to reboot after an update and so lost some work when it shut down and rebooted one evening. My love for the people of Microsoft knows no bounds at this point.....At least I'm not affected by this latest snafu

Re: "However we had hoped to change this to English"

Downvoted just because I pointed out how you can change the language of a Windows installation without re-installing a different version? Someone had very deep issues when he was a child... time to look for professional help, believe me. Or one day you risk to jump out of a Windows...

Re: Nor just on separate drives!!!

I don't have the update and have that all the time ... well, it does not freeze for a full minute, more like 5 or 10 seconds ... the trackpad also "disables" itself temporarily (unrelated, much more rare, about once or twice a day), which is why I have a mouse for when that happens. No, I have the latest driver from HP.

Woe Is Me

I've set up I don't know how many PCs with W10 on an SSD and a large data drive. I can't wait for all those calls. The configuration makes support easier with the separate system partition easier to back up and restore with redundant data locally and in a cloud.

The behavior started recently and has proved immune to all measures (including leaving it alone for 12 hours to see if it was actually doing real useful work like re-indexing itself or something rather than just spinning its wheels to make doing real work hard, slow and annoying) except shutting the service down. Once I do that, my system flies like Concorde from a properly cleaned runway, (as it bloody well should with twin cores, a couple of gigahertz clocking and 8 gig memory on tap. Spinning rust, but spinning at 7200).

Windows 10 users have only themselves to blame. A sucky user interface welded to an unfinished engine designed primarily to move the user to a cloud-subscription-except-you-buy-the-hardware model rather than be a useful progression from what he/she had before. The first vendor to start actually selling Linux Mint web-books and webtowers (instead of talking big about "coming plans") will clean up like it was 1995.

Re: Bah!

3) Install, if you didn't already, one the latest Windows Update Clients. There has been issues with some versions.

4) Try on offline update using WSUS Offline.

None of those will install W10, don't worry.

For example, I just fixed a few days ago a system where uninstalling Avast crippled the vbscript execution engine (it looks that Avast install changed some registry keys to intercept vbscript execution, but didn't restore them properly). Then Windows Update started to spin without doing anything useful.

Vbscript may be as dangerous as you like, but it looks it is still used here and there by some updates, and if it doesn't work, it's still an issue. It was WSUS Offline to lead me to the root cause, because it does use vbscript as well.

Re: Bah!

The windows update troubleshooter is no longer available for windows 7. Links to it land on a dead page or did all last weekend.

This advice, while well taken, is almost word for word what Microsoft's forum spat out, and the responses to the issue were for a problem occurring over 18 months ago. Nothing about a problem that started last Tuesday. I assumed that it was something local that was banjaxed, a repository that had overflowed or some such. But I've not been able to detect such a problem on the machine itself.

And it isn't windows defender either. The issue tracks back decisively to windows update. Amazingly, this was easy to hunt down using only the Task Manager, which has features in it not in the Sysinternals Resource Monitor. Whodathunkit?

Re: Bah!

"Windows 10 users have only themselves to blame. A sucky user interface welded to an unfinished engine designed primarily to move the user to a cloud-subscription-except-you-buy-the-hardware model rather than be a useful progression from what he/she had before. The first vendor to start actually selling Linux Mint web-books and webtowers (instead of talking big about "coming plans") will clean up like it was 1995."

From the figures I've seen, there have been statistically significant rises in the use of OS X, Linux and Chrome OS (a heavily amended form of Gentoo Linux) machines this past year coincident with the introduction of Windows 10 and I expect that trend to continue if Windows 10 continues to be so error prone. Despite the complaining about the interface, I didn't see anything similar happening with the introduction of Windows 8 perhaps because Win 8 didn't bork your machine or get into an endless reboot cycle, etc. At least Windows 8 and 8.1 could easily be tamed with the installation of a third party menu system.

This is only anecdotal but it looks like many people are buying new Apple iMacs, Apple Macbooks and Chromebooks and they are dual booting their favourite Windows 7 with a flavour of Linux. Under the current circumstances, I suspect that PC and laptop sellers that sell their machines with easy to use Linux variants might do well.

Only on the reg :P

oh and lol to my first post, I listed how i fixed it (hoping it may help some other win10 user facing the issue) and what id found for other vendors hardware and some bellend downvoted me for helpful advice, lol only at the reg :)

My work loves M$, so I loaded winX on my home PC to keep up. WinX is faster on my PC than 7 was, so that's nice. It hasn't had a problem with the SSD, but every time an update visits, the Intel network card on the mobo quits. Remove in device manager, search for new hardware and it's back to work.

Threw Windows 10 just before the expiration of the "freebee". 2012 HP Elitebook without SSD. Ran poorly and had 100% disk usage issue. Found info online that had be do a registry entry. That stopped the disk issue, but still ran poorly, so I reverted back to 7. After Anniversary Update came out, I tried again. No disk issue then, but still ran poorly. Since Microsoft shortened the time for rollbacks to 10 days with AU, I rolled back, because I didn't have time to mess with it. Probably just keep it on 7 as there were other issues, like VPN not working, and various drivers that I may or may not have been able to get working. Just not worth the hassle. At least the rollback worked great both times!

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I love psychology.

I like linux. Mostly it works, and when it doesn't, usually I can fix it. It got a high performance cost ratio. And most of what I do can be done on it, and for the rest there is virtual box.

It seems that for Windows, that is an unacceptable position. To stay in denial you have to engage with a huge emotional narrative, about 'user experience' 'modern way to do admin' etc etc.

That's OK, but please, just because you have an emotional relationship with Windows, doesn't mean that's the only way to relate to software. For most of us who have been in on the game since before DOS, and OS is an OS, it will have strengths and weaknesses, quirks, and bugs, occasionally let us down badly but hopefully mostly just be there doing what its supposed to without us actually being aware off it at all.

Royal Nonesuch?

I was a fan of DOS, and CP/M, because they brought computing to people who otherwise would not have had it.

I grew to like Unix, because it was an affordable multi-user server system.

I never saw the point of a GUI to admin a system. If you are good enough to admin, you are good enough to edit a text file.

But that of course is where psychology comes in. The Royal Nonesuch.. Windows flatters, to sell, Flatters that because you can fill in boxes in a gui you are actually doing admin.

At all cost the illusion must be maintained. The User (or the Used) must feel in control, empowered, even though the target market is too stupid to actually be let near the real guts of the system.

And so you make the system simpler to use, by removing all choice and replacing it with a system that second guesses what the user wants, and tells them they are stupid and stuck in the 70's if they don't.

Royal Nonesuch.

Are you ready to admit you have spent a whole shedload of cash on a pile of steaming wombat turds?

Of course not. And now you are locked in.

Its not that linux is good, it's that windows is spectacularly bad. All chrome and tailfins on a tractor chassis.

Linux will outlast windows on the desktop, but the desktop wont last that much longer. The idiot market now fondles slabs: Eventually the application vendors will realise that linux is simply easier to support and port their apps to it and that will be the end of that.

I say that not because I am irrationally attached to linux, but because I've been in this game a long while. I saw the PC sweep the field because it was a better than than a mainframe and a terminal I see windows dying because its actually worse than the alternatives. It has a couple of good apps and legacy support. That's simply not enough.

Admit it. You stay with windows for emotional reason. You have bought into the bullshit and you cant bear to admit you have been had.

Re: I love psychology.

It's the worst thing ever. Except for all the rest of them.

The tone of your post is fairly off-base. The condescending attitude toward those of us that like a GUI isn't helpful, and honestly your depictions are closer to the manner used by Apple. Microsoft are just being high-handed wankers that think they're fooling someone by saying they listen to user feedback.

Actually, the rest is fairly rubbish too. The Linux is trying to get there, still isn't there yet on gaming. It's partway there, some stuff runs. More widespread support of Vulkan may help with that. More stuff like Play on Linux, maybe the SteamOS. Businesses are the only ones really locked into things, and honestly if MS goes too far I expect legal action from them, to the tune of multiples of the $10k the one woman got.

I've been trying to get some flavor of Linux on a spare HD in a hot-swap enclosure. It's not happening yet, because Mint keeps breaking mid-install. I'm going to keep trying, but there it is.

Not me...

I have my D drive with all my data and an SSD as my C drive, running Anniversary Update for over a week (on this and 3 other PCs) without a problem. I am a late adopter, I never expected to leave Windows 7 because I liked it... a lot. However, I'll be damned if I spend any more on Windows, as long as I use Windows (the other 2 computers on my LAN are Fedora and Ubuntu) and I waited until the 26th of July to start upgrading. I had already upgraded two other computers for friends (after one had a hard drive failure and and other stupid enough to respond to the fake Windows alert) so I had already become familiar with Windows 10. I'm embarrassed to say I like it more than Windows 7.

Ha, some anniversary I had. Yes SSD, rendered my machine unrecoverable. Wasted 6 hours with different levels of support. All making special promises of "don't worry we have a fix for this "... "YES MICROSOFT YOUR FIX IS EASY...SPEND 50 HOURS DOWNLOADING THE WINDOWS 10 ISO (on an optic fibre connection), THEN DO A CLEAN INSTALL AND LOSE ALL YOUR DATA...

Imagine if I hadn't the experience to make sure my drive is backed up before letting Microsoft updates lose on my machine (if you get the choice). Business could have been totalled.

Then to add insult to injury, everytime I was passed to another support agent they ended the chat with "Have a nice day sir" I was pretty much having the worse day I have had since Windows 2.1 updates.

Then the icing on the cake was the last top level support guy said in a dreary depressing voice "I am sorry sir you have used up all our resources, you will need to install a fresh installation. The bonus was they said early on "Oh, we are not going to charge you gor this 6 hour call"

Well all I can say is if you are contemplating a Windows machine, MAKE SURE you instantly purchase a backup program like Acronis...

Linux and the abomination

I have a dual boot with Xubuntu 16.04 and the abomination version 10 (Abombv10) i call it, but Xubuntu had an issue with the displayport monitor not waking up from suspend, so was being lazy and using mainly Abombv10. When the anniversary update broke the abomination, I solely used Xubuntu. A quick google on the issue, a new update on a forum, a seamless kernel upgrade from 4.4 to 4.5 and displayport sleepy issue fixed.

The missus wanted to check her online banking, which for some reason she saved the details in edge not chrome. Had to restore the windows 10 from a backup, It auto updated again and died again.

If only game devs were not such big fans of the abomination, I would drop it completely.